Robert Novitsky: Why do you lift weights?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Why Do You Lift Weights? | Robert Novitsky

[Eric Schexnayder]

What is wrong with wanting to look good naked?

[Mark Rippetoe]

It can impede your progress toward looking good naked.

[Barry Charles]

When I started training for strength, I was sold on the idea that stronger people are harder to kill. And that this was true for surviving car accidents or disease. While I can’t prove it, being a strong 60 year old saved my life. And interestingly, my oncology team endorses and encourages this concept (yeah!), but my friends , family, and the million gym rats, still say abs, biceps, and low BMI are the fountain of youth.

[Jason Donaldson]

As the saying goes, you don't get second things by pursuing second things. You get them by pursuing the first things.

[Eric Schexnayder]

It can impede your progress toward looking good naked.

So we agree it's not necessarily an invalid goal but should be achieved only through the pursuit of strength, and sacrificing strength to pursue naked-good-looking-ness is not advisable in the long run.

But here's where I always get lost in this line of thinking. Perhaps this is an "eye of the beholder" thing, but I think body fat is a good proxy for naked-good-looking-ness (let's assume equal muscularity / lean body mass). And to be clear I'm not talking raZr aBZ. I'm talking jiggly fat. Walk down the street with a ripple effect fat. The kind of fat where when you tell someone you lift weights, suspicious eyebrow raises ensue.

Obviously, this kind of fat loss requires a caloric deficit, which we all know is contraindicated if strength is the goal. But a never-ending caloric surplus seems like it will always result in accumulation of more body fat, which seems contrary to looking good naked.

So to me, looking good naked and getting stronger at the same time seem incompatible.

[Mark Rippetoe]

So to me, looking good naked and getting stronger at the same time seem incompatible.

To the hundreds of thousands of people who have actually done it, it is perfectly compatible.

[Eric Schexnayder]

To the hundreds of thousands of people who have actually done it, it is perfectly compatible.

“actually done it” as in lost body fat while still getting stronger? What am I missing in how this is done correctly?

[Chiaki Nitya]

I trained for "looks" for about 2 years before giving up on that goal because none of the 3 sets of 10 body part split routines I followed changed my physique at all. About 3 months after I started training for strength, my physique changed and was much closer to what I had wanted to look like when I was training for looks.

Also, women don't care if a guy looks good naked. They do, however, notice guys who fill out the shoulders of their shirts and jackets, and who have visible traps and big thighs. By the time a woman sees you naked, she had already found you attractive enough to get you naked in the first place.

[Maybach]

A lot of the questioning of the idea that strength and aesthetics are orthogonal, or even *different,* goals, seems to rely heavily on hypothetical individuals. The theoretical guy who is really strong, but somehow doesn't look very muscular. These people don't exist. Most people who are strong, look strong. It's hard to surprise people with the fact that you can squat 400 pounds. Most of the people who are "dissatisfied with their physiques" when they train specifically for strength have not gotten particularly strong. They may THINK they have, but if you ask them, they haven't. It's no coincidence that the sources who claim that you have to cut body fat for a time to look good also think that 315 is a heavy deadlift.